Then I feel the rope move, like someone has grabbed it higher up.
Twenty-Three
Right away I start to panic. I can feel the vibrations from the serrated blade Tucker's using to saw through the rope. The ledge I’m standing on isn't wide enough for me to cling on to without the rope, and I flail around a bit pulling myself back up to the wider one, just above my head. But as I do so, I see what the real problem is. It's Steven, he's flown down to see what I'm doing and he's actually landed on the rope. The vibrations are him moving his wings up and down to keep his balance. I freeze, and feel it for a while. Steven settles, and pecks at the rope a couple of times. I feel how it makes the rope move. It's not Tucker at the top, the movement on the rope is just Steven.
I flick the rope, to dislodge him, and when he's flying around me again, skimming along the cliff face in the air, I feel the rope very carefully, just to be sure. It's not moving any more.
"Stupid bird," I call out. "If you want to be helpful, why don't you go and check Dad's truck's not there?" But he just peeps at me, and glides past my head with his wings outstretched.
But after my scare I start to gain a bit more confidence. Now I’m near the bottom of the rope I work out that I can wrap it around my body, and it works as a kind of harness. As long as I don't let go, it takes my weight quite well. I discover I can even traverse to the left and right, moving in little arcs, and covering more of the cliff face as I do it. And doing that I lower myself right to the limit of the rope, right before where the cliff goes fully vertical. And that's when I see it. On the final ledge before the cliff drops away to the rocks below I can see a Samsung Galaxy S9. It's the right way up, with the screen totally shattered.
I go to lower myself the last few steps to pick it up, but I can’t quite get there. I’ve run out of rope. I try unwinding it from my body, but even holding the very end of the rope, I can't reach the phone. I'd have to let go completely, and if I did that there would be nothing to prevent me tumbling the rest of the way down. The tide is in below me, but I wouldn’t hit the water, I’d fall straight onto rocks.
I look down now, seeing the jagged fringe of granite, like teeth, and then the blue of the calm ocean. I swallow.
I wonder if I can hold on with just one hand, and reach below me to pick up the phone. I don't know if it want to, my hands are sweaty again now, but I force myself to do it. I bend down and slide my other hand along the cliff face, feeling my way down the rock and earth. But it's no good. I'm still too high.
I try to reach with my foot instead, and this time I get within a couple of meters of the phone, but no closer. I'm beginning to feel super frustrated when Steven suddenly comes in to land on the same ledge as the phone. I guess he got bored flying around watching me.
Effortlessly he steps over to Tucker's phone. He pecks at the screen a couple of times, and then looks at me. I hold my breath, hardly able to watch.
"Come on Stevie. Get it boy."
He pecks at it again. With his beak he carefully lifts it up, and turns it over. As he does so he pushes it almost to the edge.
"Careful boy. Just pick it up."
But then he seems to lose interest. Instead he lifts up one of his legs, pulls it into the softer feathers around his belly, and closes one eye.
"Steven!" I shout at him, and he wakes again. And then I pretend I've got fish on me. I pat the pocket of my jacket. Steven looks interested.
"Come on boy, get the phone."
All that training definitely taught him to do something, but he's not sure what it is I want him to do. I wish I could speak better Herring Gull. I pat my pocket again. I point at the phone, and eventually he moves back to it, and paws at it with one claw.
"Grab it!"
Then Steven fianally does what I've asked. He gently grips the phone in his beak, it nearly slides out at first, but he gets it balanced, then tips his head back. Then he stretches out his wings, and before I can stop him, he takes off, right out away from the cliff edge.
He gets about five meters before it slips out from his beak and tumbles down. Steven arcs down after it at once, trying to snatch it out of the air, but he just ends up clattering into it. The phone spins further out from the cliff face and moments later splashes into the sea. For a second I hope Steven might dive in after it. Or it might float, but neither of those things happens. Instead there’s nothing left except the mirror calm surface of the water, interrupted only by a small, growing ring of ripples where the phone disappeared.
Twenty-Four
I climb back up the rope to find Steven waiting for me at the top. I feel like shouting at him, but there's no point. And at least there's still no sign of Tucker. I pull up all the rope and put it back in my shed. And I find my goggles.
Then I climb all the way down the old cliff path to the sea. The tide's high, but it's a totally calm day. I clamber out on the rocks along the edge of the cliff base until I'm right below where I was just climbing. Then I strip off my clothes, and I slip into the sea.
I used to be really scared of the water. I could swim – Dad made sure of that – but I didn't much like it. I wouldn’t go into any water except the swimming pool, and only then because there were lifeguards and I could touch the bottom the whole time. And it all got made worse when Dad was trying to teach me to surf, and I got confused, and thought he was actually trying to murder me. I had these therapy sessions after that, and they told me it was all linked to what happened when I was a baby, when my mom tried to drown me. I don’t think the therapist helped much, but even so, I like the water now – swimming and diving. You can’t really be a marine biologist and not like the water. It’s kind of where it all happens.
I swim out now, with my goggles in my hair. I try to put myself right at the spot where the phone hit the water. It's hard to be exact, even though I took bearings, and even though I know the rocks really well. When I get to where I think the phone will be I put the goggles down over my eyes and duck my head under the water.
I'm lucky it's such a clear day. When there's a swell it churns up the sand and you can't see more than a few meters under the water, but now it's been flat for a couple of days, and the visibility is good. I can see all the way to the bottom, four or five meters down. The rocks and the sand are bathed in greeny blue sunlight. I take a deep breath and kick down for the bottom.
A couple of bass watch me as I descend. I reach out and grab hold of a rock. I didn't use to like touching things underwater, I felt like they were going to grab me and hold me down, but now I'm OK about it. Even long strands of seaweed that look like they're going to wrap around your feet, I know it's just plants. Underwater plants.
I hold onto the rock now. I look around. The water is cold down here, different to at the surface, where it's warmed by the sun. I feel my hair caught in the water as I look from side to side. I spot something on the sea floor, on a patch of sand. I swim over to it, but I run out of air, and I have to surface again before I can get to it.
My lungs hurt when I get to the top, and I have to float for a little while, getting my breath back before I'm ready to dive again. But then I take another big breath, and I push my head back under the water. I pull myself down with strong strokes. I have to hold my nose half way down and blow out hard, to equalize the pressure in my ears.
But this time I make it all the way to the bottom, and there in front of my is Tucker's Samsung Galaxy S9 phone. I grip it in my hands, making sure I'm not going to drop it like Steven did. And then I kick off from the bottom and leave a stream of bubbles flowing out of my nose as I coast back to the surface.
I swim back to the rocks, and clamber slowly out. I dry myself with a towel. I’m kinda frustrated with how much effort that took, but at the same time I’m quite pleased with my day’s work. Then I carry the phone back to my bedroom.
The glass back and screen are totally shattered, and there's a couple of scuffs in the aluminum part too. I don't even bother trying to turn it on. There's no way it's going to
work. Instead I pull open the drawer and rummage around until I find a paper clip. Then I press in the button to release the SIM card tray, and it pops out right away. And then I give a really broad smile.
Do you remember I told you I saw a documentary on cell phones? It talked about how most US cell phones don't use SIM cards because they use the CDMA network. That means all the data gets stored on the phone itself. So if the phone gets broken – like, for example, smashed against a table and thrown down a cliff into the sea – then all the data on the phone would be lost. But some phones, notably T-Mobile and AT&T use a different cell network called GSM. GSM phones store all the information on a little electronic chip that you slot into the phone called a SIM card. And on these phones it doesn't matter how damaged the phone gets, because all the information is on the SIM.
Tucker's phone is T-Mobile. And the SIM is still there.
Twenty-Five
"Billy! Where the hell have you been?"
I'm just stepping off the bus, outside school and I can't actually get off because Amber is standing there at the stop, yelling at me. There’s something different about her too. I takes me a moment to work out what. Then I see it. Her hair isn’t blue anymore. It’s a kind of rich, dark red. I quite like it actually.
"I've been calling, messaging. Trying to get you on Skype. You wouldn't answer anything." She stares at me. I open my mouth to reply but don't know what to say. Eventually she moves enough so that I can climb down off the bus.
"Where were you yesterday?" she follows me now. "You weren't at school."
I didn't tell you, but I had to switch my cell phone off yesterday, when I was trying to train Steven, because Amber kept messaging me and making the phone beep. It was putting Steven off. I try to walk past her, but she falls into step beside me.
"Did you even get my messages?"
I try to keep looking dead ahead, but there’s no way to escape her.
"I've been busy..."
"Busy? Doing what? How can you be busy?" Suddenly she stops, and when I don't do the same she grabs my shoulder so I have to.
"Hey, you didn't get another case did you? One you're not telling me about?"
"What do you mean?"
"From the agency. You didn't take my email off the website? You didn't get someone else to give you a case?"
"No." I screw up my eyes. It's actually quite a good idea, to remove her email. Just in case another email does come in. I thought about taking the whole site down, but Amber would see that and she’d go mental about it.
"Course not."
Amber stares at me suspiciously for a few moments. "You better not. We're partners, you know that?"
I kind of half-nod my head.
"I have to go to class."
"Fuck class, we have to go to work."
It's really hard to get used to the language Amber uses.
"I can't... I can't not go to class."
"Yes you can. What class is it?"
"Geography. With Mr. Parker."
"Mr. Parker's a fucking moron. You can skip it. Come on."
And so, without me really meaning to, I find myself turning around and following Amber in the complete opposite direction to the school. There's quite a few other students still arriving, and I feel like they all must be staring at me. But no one says anything, and soon we're around the corner and out of sight.
"Where are we going?"
"Smithsons."
I wait for her to explain further, but she doesn’t.
"What's Smithsons?"
"I told you. I messaged you." Amber replies, and then she doesn't say anymore, she just walks really fast so that I can't keep up with her.
"Well can you remind me?" I ask, when I've caught up.
"You did read them didn't you?"
"Of course."
"Well then."
She's still walking really fast.
"Could you maybe remind me? Just a little bit."
Amber stops, but just for a second. Then she sighs.
"You're unbelievable Wheatley. Smithsons is the auto garage at the end of Main Street. It's been there for years." Amber turns to start walking again. But I stop her.
"So why are we going there?" I wonder if maybe she's crashed her mom's car. I wouldn't be surprised.
"We're going to speak to Gerry Smithson."
"OK. Why?"
"I thought you said you read my messages?"
"I maybe missed one. Or two. I've had some... Issues."
This causes Amber to stop for a second time.
"What does that mean?" She cocks her head to one side. It kind of reminds me of Steven, when he thinks I might be holding a fish behind my back.
"Nothing."
She keeps looking at me.
"Do you want me to read them now?" I ask this just to stop her looking at me like that.
"Fuck it. Read 'em later. For now just listen." Then she starts walking again, just as fast as before.
I have to half run to keep up with her.
"I figured something. If Henry Jacobs was the headmaster of Newlea High School back in 1979, then there must be plenty of people who were in the school at the time. Students I mean. And they might remember him, and what happened to him."
I think about this for a moment. It makes sense.
"So I worked it out, we need people who were aged between 13 and 17, forty years ago. So that would make them 53 to 57 today. And then I searched on Facebook for people who've put down their school as Newlea High School, and with a date of birth between 1963 and 1967." She looks at me and waits, like she knows I'm going to check the math. I quickly work it out, then I nod.
"Only, you can't actually do that, as you probably know – since Facebook doesn't show you people's ages." She gives me a smug grin.
"But even so, you can get a pretty good idea from how old people look. So then I started messaging everyone I could find who looked the right age and attended Newlea High School. I asked them if they remembered their school principal Henry Jacobs, or knew anyone who did. And Gerry Smithson from the garage on Main Street. He got back to me and said he remembered him. So that's why we're going to see him. OK?"
I do my best to process all this.
"OK."
"Good."
The garage isn't far, so even though I've got a bunch of other questions to ask Amber, I don't get the chance to ask them.
Smithson’s garage is just off the road, behind a set of bright blue gates. There’s a double-width opening to the workshop itself, through bright blue doors, where a couple of cars are lifted up in the air. There's music playing from a radio somewhere, and a man in greasy blue overalls is leaning into the engine bay of a battered looking sedan. Since this is Amber's idea, I let her take the lead.
"Are you Gerry Smithson?" She asks.
"Yeah." He's got his hands deep in the engine, but somehow also a roll up between his lips. "What you want?"
"I'm Amber. I sent you the Facebook message."
Mr. Smithson narrows his eyes. He looks confused.
"The detective?"
"That's right."
His frown deepens.
"You look older. On the computer."
Amber smiles at this, but the man doesn't. "Thanks," she says.
Mr. Smithson doesn’t move. I’m not sure he meant it as a compliment.
"You said you remembered Henry Jacobs, from when you were at school? You said you wouldn't mind meeting? To speak about it."
Still Mr. Smithson hasn’t moved, his hands are still in the engine.
"What the hell is this? Some kind of kid's project?"
Amber glances at me, then swings her bag off her shoulder. She roots around for a moment and then pulls out a small rectangular card. She glances at me again, and then holds it up so that Mr. Smithson can see. I have to lean forward to see what's on it.
"Not at all. As I said, we work for the Lornea Island Detective Agency. We're investigating the disappearance of one Henry Jacobs in 1979. Yo
u said you might be able to help."
It’s a proper business card, and she’s put the logo from the website in the middle. Below that is her name. It says:
Amber Atherton
Senior Investigator
Gerry Smithson looks from the card to Amber and then back again. Then he looks at me as well and I can tell how confused he is. I'm quite confused as well, but I try to keep it off my face.
"You said you remember Henry Jacobs?" Amber goes on. "He would have been the principal of Newlea High School from 1973 to 1979. You said you were a student there at the time?"
Finally Mr. Smithson takes his hands out of the engine and walks away to a bench. It's littered with oily tools and bits of car engines. He picks up a rag and wipes his hand. Then he turns back to Amber.
"Yeah I remember him."
Amber bites her lip and tries not to look excited.
"Could you tell us what happened to him?" She asks. But Mr. Smithson just frowns for a bit, then shrugs.
"Far as I know, nothing happened to him."
"But he stopped being the principal? A woman took over instead. She was called Mrs. Clarke?"
Still Mr. Smithson wipes his hands. Finally he shrugs again. "If you say so. I don't remember her. It was a long time ago." He stops, and I think that's all he has to say, but then he continues. "But I do remember Jacobs." He doesn't go on, doesn't explain the look he gives us.
"What do you remember about him? Was there something... memorable?" Amber asks.
I still haven't said a single word since we got here, and maybe Mr. Smithson wonders about this now, since he looks at me again. He's still holding Amber's card and he studies it again.
The Lornea Island Detective Club Page 11
